


if you listen, you'll hear its echo

by theinkwell33



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Collecting Seashells, Fluff, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Post-Apocalypse, Requited Affection, Slice of Life, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), and metaphors, cocoa, depending on your reading, fluff by the sea, it's soft okay, they're both working through things, unspoken feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 18:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20394397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinkwell33/pseuds/theinkwell33
Summary: Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale collects theirs at the same time. Neither has told the other they perform this same ritual.But the seashells accumulate on the windowsill in the kitchen all the same.





	if you listen, you'll hear its echo

There is something to be said for the collecting of seashells. 

Back when they lived in London, it was impossible to do so, but now that their cottage faces the sea, it’s rather expected. And it seems to instill a calm and much needed peace in the lives of two beings who would otherwise need an outlet to process certain events of the past year.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale collects theirs at the same time. Neither has told the other they perform this same ritual.

But the seashells accumulate on the windowsill in the kitchen all the same.

Crowley’s are usually a sandy brown, with scalloped edges, and a little white at the center of the shell, and if you were to turn them over, you’d see a shiny, concave shape with a bleeding stain of purple. He lines his up side by side, like an army, on the left side of the white painted ledge. When the golden sun comes through the window in the afternoon and shines on them, it’s his reminder to go and look for more.

Aziraphale takes a rather disorganized approach to his collection. Namely, if he sees one he likes, he picks it up. No rhyme or reason. No discriminating tastes. They range in size from barely the width of his thumbnail to resting comfortably in the cup of his palm. They are odd and unique individuals, and he  _ loves  _ them.

On the windowsill, Aziraphale arranges his in swirling circles, with no pattern. He has quite a few more than Crowley, so not all of his prizes make it to the window - some find homes by the bathroom sink, or out in the garden beside the flagstone path. If Crowley has noticed these new decorations in his trudges out to his garden, he’s never mentioned it. But Aziraphale is careful not to fill up their shared ledge with his own shells. Even if he collects these relics of the sea at a faster pace, he’s more than willing to let Crowley catch up until the spot on the windowsill is finally full. After that, they can decide what to do about their shells. And about other things.

Aziraphale walks the little beach in the middle of the night. It’s his way of archiving his good memories, the way a human’s brain might during sleep. With each shell he scoops from its partially buried state in the cold sand, he documents another thing he wishes to remember. He rinses the shell in the small waves that lap at his bare feet (sandals tucked away by the rock outcrop, long forgotten), then puts it in his little canvas bag. He acquired it at the local grocery, having been rather taken by the pun emblazoned on it.  _ Let’s Shell-ebrate!  _ Obviously, Crowley hates it. 

But nowadays, Crowley hated things the way people say they hate Bohemian Rhapsody, but if1 it comes on the radio, they’re the ones singing along the loudest. Which is to say, Crowley hates very little. But he has a reputation to maintain. And Aziraphale would never ask him to abandon it.

> 1Not if. _When_.

When Aziraphale’s bag is full of treasures - black pebbles with white stripes down the middle, and little black and gray scallops, and tiny pink tellins - he washes off his feet at the spluttering spigot near the beach entrance, slips on his shoes, then walks across the rocks back to the dark cottage. Once inside, he makes a cup of cocoa, stirring absently as he lays his shells out to dry on a small towel. He looks them over, the way one might look over a job well done, and smiles. Each one is a memory to him, a small snapshot of significance. A glass of champagne, a nightingale, the slamming of a car door, the scent of molten steel, the taste of crepes.

It’s well known that any music left in the Bentley for too long metamorphoses into Queen. It is less well known that all memories (or shells, if you will), when Aziraphale holds onto them for long enough, turn to memories of Crowley. It is a fact so little known, actually, that not even Crowley is aware. Then again, it’s probably good that he doesn’t know. It would most likely alter his current emotional state to something less than “cool”, and it’s well known that Crowley has a reputation to preserve.

Crowley does his collecting in the afternoon during low tide, when the sparse sun on the beach makes the saturated sand look like brown sugar, and the waves are foamy and gentle. He rolls up the legs of his black trousers and wades into the surf, feeling his feet sink down into the sand. Sometimes he wonders if someday he’ll walk in and just keep sinking, down and down and down until he’s right back There.

On those days, he turns around without collecting any seashells and squelches his way back to the cottage. The ledge remains at its current shell count. On those days, he’s in a sour mood for the rest of the afternoon, until Aziraphale comes home from his knitting class and they sit in the warm living room to read until dinner. On those days, Crowley takes stock in his surroundings, brews a cup of tea with extra bergamot, and tucks his feet up under him when he sits. If they’re not on the floor, he can’t sink. That’s his logic.

On better days, the cold water is refreshing, and he’s able to gaze out at the glittering horizon, feeling free and buoyant. The beach is one of the few times it’s socially acceptable to wear sunglasses, so he feels less out of place. After a while, his feet will get cold (Eastbourne is hardly tropical), so he’ll retreat out of the water and start his hunt for the perfect seashells.

He knows exactly what to look for. They wash up here frequently, there has never been a day when he searched only to come up empty handed. They’re his favorite creamy tan color, they have a smooth underside that’s been polished until it glimmers, tainted only by a violent, trickling stain of mauve there like a leaking heart.

Crowley places his carefully curated finds in a plastic bag (he’s a demon, what’s he supposed to do, use paper?) with the sand still coated on them. He likes washing them at the outdoor work sink he put in a few months ago by his garden. That way, he can examine them for flaws away from the prying eye of the public. He doesn’t talk to them the way he talks to his plants. He just stares at them silently, holding them in his hands and mentally promising never to take them back where he found them. 

They’re somewhere better now. Somewhere dry and warm and safe, away from the buffeting waves and careless trodding feet. The shells he collects are easily crushed. He tries not to think about the metaphorical resonances of this. He hates metaphors, because he is one.

When he’s done rinsing them off, he lays them to dry by the door to the garden, where they’ll be tucked out of the way. He won’t come back to fetch them until the following morning, but they’ll be all right, protected from the evening rains with a good view of the moon.

Then, he makes his way to the kitchen, puts the kettle on, and expects to hear Aziraphale’s key in the lock at any moment. He appreciates the certainty of this routine more than he can admit.

He stands with his bare feet on the wood floor, staring out the kitchen window. He takes note of Aziraphale’s swirling eddies of shells. He’s chosen mainly the darker ones for the ledge; lots of black and gray pebbles, a few charcoal colored scallops. If pressed, Crowley would realize they match his own aesthetic...but he’s not ready to think that yet. It’ll come to him eventually. 

Someday, they’ll meet in the middle of the ledge, but he’s not in a rush, and Aziraphale knows what it’s like to take one’s time. He’ll understand.

The next morning, after breakfast, Crowley places his new additions in a new row, each one making a tiny  _ chink _ , which to him sounds like a  _ hello _ . They’re new but he loves them already. And he smiles.


End file.
